A technique is known which collects behavioral data on a customer by associating trajectory data on the customer's moving path with transaction data indicative of the contents of the customer's purchase.
In the conventional technique, a computer tracks a customer's moving path until the customer stands at the end of a queue of customers waiting at a checkout lane for checkout. When the tracking ends, the computer stores identification information on the trajectory data indicative of the customer's moving path in a queue storage section according to the order in which the customers stand in the queue waiting for checkout. When the leading customer in the queue waiting for checkout checks out, the computer stores transaction data on the checked-out transaction in the queue storage section in association with the leading trajectory data identification information in the queue storage section. Thereafter, the computer deletes the leading trajectory data identification information.
In this conventional technique, the computer needs to track the customer's moving path until the customer stands in the queue waiting at the checkout lane for checkout. Thus, in stores with large floor spaces, what is called a trajectory recognition system needs to be constructed; the trajectory recognition system is a computer system configured to track customers' pathways all over the large floor space. This disadvantageously requires high facility and maintenance costs.
Some stores have only to be able to manageably associate a customer's behavior in a particular selling space with the contents of the customer's purchase. For example, the store may desire to know how a customer having purchased an article (a) behaves in a particular selling space (b). In such a case, it is in the selling space (b) that the customer's pathway needs to be tracked. The trajectory recognition system need not be constructed in the other selling spaces. The computer need not track the customer's moving path at least until the customer stands in the queue waiting at the checkout lane for checkout
There has been a demand for a technique to associate trajectory data on a customer recognized by a trajectory recognition system constructed in a particular area of a store with transaction data on the same customer processed by a checkout apparatus arranged in an area different from the particular area.